Friday, September 8 Intervals

Well, I managed to get up this morning at 5:10 and after the typical dinking around and not getting going like I should, had to brush teeth (normally something I do after the run, not sure why before this morning) and make the bed (again something for after the run) and finally did make it out the door at 5:23 on my GPS…I had been dreading this workout all week, I really love interval workouts, but I don't like mile repeats, I prefer the half mile ones, after having pushed back the workout from Tuesday to Thursday and then skipping it, it's no wonder I was killing time to not go out...when I got out, I knew I really only had time for 5 x 1 miles this morning, which I think is part of what I was doing in my dinking around, so I set up the intervals for that, did a 1 mile warm up, stretched a little and then did my miles with the following splits:

Mile 1: 7:17
Mile 2: 7:08
Mile 3: 7:22
Mile 4: 7:05
Mile 5: 7:01

Goal I had written down when I started the schedule was 7:30 pace, obviously I’ve been going faster than that, it’s better than the last ones so I’m happy about that, although I will admit that most of them had at least a slight downhill and not much uphill (number 4 I was shocked at cause it started on an uphill) so that does help. This morning was cool, but very humid, cool full moon was setting, but it’s hard running in the dark. I hate that the days are getting so short so quickly. I was begging the sun to come up but it wasn’t up till after 6, I was getting a very strange sensation of vertigo running in the dark. This morning I didn’t bring my MP3, haven’t done that for a few runs now cause it’s causing me problems (I think the headphones are bad yet again, I’ve been through 4 pair with this thing!) so I ran without…I did see a few other runners and eventually a couple of walkers out. There were 2 girls and then a third that joined them and I think they just did laps around the block…I saw one other girl at one point too on her own…nice to know I live in a neighborhood that’s safe.

Looks like another busy weekend…I have to work tomorrow night and Sunday night…I so HATE that!! I’m also attempting to do my long run tomorrow at 20 miles. Yes, 20 miles…That was the plan last week and I only got 18.5, I know I should cut back this week but I think I feel OK enough that I’m going to do that even with the hard 9 miles today (OK, only 5 of them were hard, but I did an average pace just under 9 minutes for the entire run). This week is going to be done on a fairly flat course though, the chain of lakes in Minneapolis, twice, and water stops so I don’t have to wear my fuel belt…all this in prep for my half next weekend…I’m going to try to keep the pace around 9:30 or slower just to give my body a rest, then a slight taper next week and a hope of running the half at an 8 minute or so per mile pace. My half split at my marathon in June was 1:50, 8:24 pace, I think 8 minute is feasible…we’ll see how I feel that day though.